In the early stages of civilization, it was common for people around the world to erect megalithic structures. Let us recall, for example, Stonehenge in Great Britain, numerous dolmens or phallus-like blocks. But from this series of ancient megaliths, those for which Easter Island is famous stand out. The statues installed there amazed Europeans from the very beginning. And they continue to amaze us to this day. After all, their secret has never been fully solved. In addition, the question of where they came to this small piece of land, lost in the middle, has not been answered. Pacific Ocean three thousand kilometers from the mainland, the first people. In this article we will briefly talk about the secrets of Easter Island. After all, this land is simply overflowing with attractions.

Where is Easter Island located?

The moai statues were the first to greet European sailors in 1722. The ship, led by Captain Jacob Roggeveen, landed on unknown shores on Holy Week, so it was decided to name the island in honor of the upcoming holiday. The natives themselves called their land Te-Pito-o-Te-Whenua, Rapa-Nui and Mata-Ki-Te-Range. But the word Easter (Pascua) was more familiar to the ears of Europeans, and on all maps of the world the island is listed as such. It is located in the eastern corner of the Pacific Ocean and is a triangle of land with a side length of no more than twenty-four kilometers. The island is of volcanic origin, making it mountainous. The highest point is 539 meters above sea level. Administratively, this land belongs to Chile, although it is three thousand six hundred kilometers away from the nearest city of Valparaiso. Easter Island has a wonderful climate conducive to a relaxing holiday. The waters off its shores are heated to +24 degrees all year round, and the beaches are strewn with interesting pinkish sand. But the main attraction that attracts many tourists to Easter Island is the statues.

The history of the discovery of a lost civilization

The Dutch navigator J. Roggeveen was the first to suggest that the idols rising along the entire coast of Rapa Nui could not have been made by the aborigines whom he found. The people who inhabited the island at the beginning of the eighteenth century reached the level of development of primitive society. They had primitive tools, and it was doubtful that they could make such sculptures and deliver them from the quarries to the shore. Roggeveen spent only a day on the island, but he managed to observe how the natives sat around the idol, lit a fire and sang ritual songs. A second expedition led by Felipe Gonzalez arrived in 1770. The Spaniards suggested that the stone idols were brought here from the mainland. But who brought the statues to Easter Island and from where? Excavations carried out in the twentieth century helped establish that the moai are of local origin. A quarry was also found. It was located in the crater of the extinct volcano Rano Raraku.

Mysterious people

Easter Island statues, photos of which are business card this Chilean province is not the only mystery of these places. Even the first navigators described what they found among the aborigines, representatives of three races. There were dark-skinned people, Asians, and people with completely white skin. J. Cook had the idea to bring a Polynesian with him to the island, who somehow managed to communicate with the locals. They said that twenty-two generations ago their leader Hotu Matua arrived here. But they couldn’t really say where it came from. The aborigines also explained that the stone statues on Easter Island are not images of gods, but of their former rulers, whose souls continue to care for their descendants. Where did its first inhabitants come from to the lost island? Many hypotheses have been put forward in the scientific world. Opinions have been expressed that the aborigines come from Egypt, India, Scandinavia, the Caucasus and even the disappeared Atlantis. Thor Heyerdahl made a successful attempt to sail to the Polynesian islands from the coast of Peru on a primitive raft, but this does not yet prove the Aztec origin of the inhabitants of Rapa Nui.

Easter Island: statues

It is not for nothing that Moai caused a stir among researchers and gave rise to so many scientific hypotheses. After all, it was not the very presence of megalithic sculptures that was strange, but the fact that the existing primitive society could not create them. First of all, the size of the stone idols is impressive. The height of most of them is about ten meters, and their weight is on average fifteen tons. The largest statue reaches 21 meters and 90 tons. How could hunter-gatherer people carve them out of solid rock and transport them to their destination? All this gave rise to the esoteric hypothesis that the statues were brought to Easter Island by aliens from outer space. No less interesting appearance moai. Long-eared, with flat cheekbones, they are unlike any other human race. Some idols are decorated with imitation tattoos or necklaces. Others wear a strange headdress made of stone on their heads.

What did the excavations show?

Modern research has brought some clarity to the question of the origin of the moai. It turned out that the idols do not belong to a civilization that existed thousands and even millions of years ago. They were installed from the 10th to the 16th centuries. And they were carved in the crater of the extinct volcano Rano Raraku. And most of the statues remained in the quarry. Some more were broken during transportation. The sculptures were transported using ropes and platforms with rotating rollers. Work began with the face and headdress. The eye sockets of the idols were filled with white coral and black obsidian. But the bodies of the statues from Easter Island were more stylized.

Mysterious tablets

Modern archaeologists also discovered something that, unlike the idols, was not visible to anyone, and even from afar. These were wooden tablets covered with writing. And these artifacts were most likely brought. Because there is not a single tree on the island. Unfortunately, the mentioned texts have not yet been deciphered. What is written on the tablets is still a mystery. Basically, it seems that in the 10th century representatives of a more advanced civilization arrived on Easter Island. Gradually, due to extreme isolation, society degraded. The inhabitants forgot writing and stopped creating new moai.

Other attractions

What else can Easter Island surprise a traveler with? The statues (excavations uncovered about 300 more, sprinkled with volcanic alluvium) are not the only attraction of this lost piece of land. Take, for example, the pedestals on which these stone idols are installed. It is believed that these are gravestones on which from one to several statues were ritually erected. In the administrative center of Hanga Roa you can learn about the history of Easter Island. It is also recommended to visit the Au Tahai fortress. Modern Easter Island is a paradise dotted with luxury hotels.

About the whole process in detail. Let's now turn to the "heads" and go to Easter Island

Easter Island, occupying 117 square meters. km. - : It is located in the Pacific Ocean at a distance of more than 3,700 km. from the nearest continent (South America) and 2600 km from the nearest inhabited island (Pitcairn).

In general, there are many secrets in the history of Easter Island. Its discoverer, Captain Juan Fernandez, fearing competitors, decided to keep his discovery, made in 1578, a secret, and some time later he accidentally died under mysterious circumstances. Although whether what the Spaniard found was Easter Island is still unclear.

144 years later, in 1722, the Dutch admiral Jacob Roggeveen stumbled upon Easter Island, and this event happened on the day of Christian Easter. So, quite by accident, the island of Te Pito o te Henua, which translated from the local dialect means the Center of the World, turned into Easter Island.

It is interesting that Admiral Roggeveen and his squadron not only sailed in this area, he tried in vain to find the elusive land of Davis, an English pirate, which, according to his descriptions, was discovered 35 years before the Dutch expedition. True, no one except Davis and his team saw the newly discovered archipelago again.

In 1687, the pirate Edward Davis, whose ship was carried far west from Copiapo, the administrative center of the Atacama region (Chile), by sea winds and the Pacific current, noticed land on the horizon, where silhouettes loomed high mountains. However, without even trying to find out whether it was a mirage or an island not yet discovered by Europeans, Davis turned the ship around and headed towards the Peruvian Current.

This “Davis Land,” which much later became identified with Easter Island, reinforced the conviction of cosmographers of that time that there was a continent in this region that was, as it were, a counterweight to Asia and Europe. This led to brave sailors searching for the lost continent. However, it was never found: instead, hundreds of islands in the Pacific Ocean were discovered.

With the discovery of Easter Island, it became widely believed that this is the continent eluding man, on which a highly developed civilization existed for thousands of years, which later disappeared in the depths of the ocean, and only high mountain peaks remained from the continent (in fact, these are extinct volcanoes ). The existence of huge statues, moai, and unusual Rapa Nui tablets on the island only reinforced this opinion.

However, modern study of the adjacent waters has shown that this is unlikely.

Easter Island is located 500 km from the ridge of seamounts known as the East Pacific Rise, on the Nazca lithospheric plate. The island sits on top of a huge mountain formed from volcanic lava. The last volcanic eruption on the island occurred 3 million years ago. Although some scientists suggest that it occurred 4.5-5 million years ago.

According to local legends, in the distant past the island was large. It is quite possible that this was the case during the Pleistocene Ice Age, when the level of the World Ocean was 100 meters lower. According to geological studies, Easter Island was never part of a sunken continent

Easter Island's mild climate and volcanic origins should have made it a paradise away from the problems that beset the rest of the world, but Roggeveen's first impression of the island was that of a devastated area, covered with dried grass and scorched vegetation. Neither trees nor bushes were visible.

Modern botanists have discovered on the island only 47 species of higher plants characteristic of this area; mostly grass, sedge and ferns. The list also includes two species of dwarf trees and two species of shrubs. With such vegetation, the inhabitants of the island had no fuel to keep warm during the cold, wet and windy winter. The only domestic animals were chickens; there were no bats, birds, snakes or lizards. Only insects were found. In total, about 2,000 people lived on the island.

Residents of Easter Island. Engraving from 1860

Now about three thousand people live on the island. Of these, only 150 people are purebred Rapanui, the rest are Chileans and mestizos. Although, again, it is not entirely clear who exactly can be considered purebred. After all, even the first Europeans who landed on the island were surprised to discover that the inhabitants of Rapa Nui - the Polynesian name for the island - were ethnically heterogeneous. Admiral Roggeveen, whom we knew, wrote that on the land he discovered there lived white, dark, brown and even reddish people. Their language was Polynesian, belonging to a dialect isolated from about 400 AD. e., and characteristic of the Marquesas and Hawaiian Islands.

Completely inexplicable were about 200 giant stone sculptures - “Moai”, located on massive pedestals along the coast of the island with pathetic vegetation, far from the quarries. Most of the statues were located on massive pedestals. At least 700 more sculptures, in varying degrees of completion, were left in quarries or on ancient roads connecting the quarries with the coast. It seemed as if the sculptors suddenly abandoned their tools and stopped working...

Distant masters carved “moai” on the slopes of the Rano Roraku volcano, located in the eastern part of the island, from soft volcanic tuff. Then the finished statues were lowered down the slope and placed along the perimeter of the island, over a distance of more than 10 km. The height of most idols ranges from five to seven meters, while later sculptures reached 10 and 12 meters. The tuff, or, as it is also called, pumice, from which they are made, has a sponge-like structure and easily crumbles even with a slight impact on it. so the average weight of a “moai” does not exceed 5 tons. Stone ahu - platform-pedestals: reached 150 m in length and 3 m in height, and consisted of pieces weighing up to 10 tons.

At one time, Admiral Roggeveen, recalling his trip to the island, claimed that the aborigines lit fires in front of the “moai” idols and squatted next to them, bowing their heads. After that, they folded their hands and swung them up and down. Of course, this observation is not able to explain who the idols really were for the islanders.

Roggeveen and his companions could not understand how, without using thick wooden rollers and strong ropes, it was possible to move and install such blocks. The islanders had no wheels, no draft animals, and no other source of energy other than their own muscles. Ancient legends say that the statues walked on their own. There is no point in asking how this actually happened, because there is no documentary evidence left anyway. There are many hypotheses about the movement of the “moai”, some are even confirmed by experiments, but all this proves only one thing - it was possible in principle. And the statues were moved by the inhabitants of the island and no one else. So why did they do this? This is where the differences begin.

It is also surprising that in 1770 the statues were still standing. James Cook, who visited the island in 1774, mentioned the lying statues; no one had noticed anything like this before him. The last time the standing idols were seen was in 1830. Then a French squadron entered the island. Since then, no one has seen the original statues, that is, installed by the inhabitants of the island themselves. Everything that exists on the island today was restored in the 20th century. The last restoration of fifteen “moai” located between the Rano Roraku volcano and the Poike Peninsula occurred relatively recently - from 1992 to 1995. Moreover, the Japanese were involved in the restoration work.

In the second half of the 19th century, the cult of the bird man also died. This strange, unique ritual for all of Polynesia was dedicated to Makemaka, the supreme deity of the islanders. The chosen one became his earthly incarnation. Moreover, interestingly, elections were held regularly, once a year. At the same time, servants or warriors took the most active part in them. It depended on them whether their owner, the head of the family clan, would become Tangata-manu, or a bird-man. It is to this rite that the main cult center, the rock village of Orongo, owes its existence. big volcano Rano Kao is at the western tip of the island. Although, perhaps, Orongo existed long before the emergence of the cult of Tangata-manu. Legends say that the heir to the legendary Hotu Matua, the first leader to arrive on the island, was born here. In turn, his descendants, hundreds of years later, themselves gave the signal for the start of the annual competition.

In the spring, messengers of the god Makemake - black sea swallows - flew to the small islands of Motu-Kao-Kao, Motu-Iti and Motu-Nui, located not far from the coast. The warrior who was the first to find the first egg of these birds and swim it to his master received seven beautiful women as a reward. Well, the owner became a leader, or rather, a bird-man, receiving universal respect, honor and privileges. The last Tangata Manu ceremony took place in the 60s of the 19th century. After the disastrous pirate raid of the Peruvians in 1862, when the pirates took the entire male population of the island into slavery, there was no one left to choose the bird-man.

Why did the Easter Island natives carve moai statues in a quarry? Why did they stop this activity? The society that created the statues must have been significantly different from the 2,000 people Roggeveen saw. It had to be well organized. What happened to him?

For more than two and a half centuries, the mystery of Easter Island remained unsolved. Most theories about the history and development of Easter Island are based on oral traditions. This happens because no one still can understand what is written in written sources - the famous tablets “ko hau motu mo rongorongo”, which roughly means a manuscript for recitation. Most of them were destroyed by Christian missionaries, but those that survived could probably shed light on the history of this mysterious island. And although the scientific world has more than once been excited by reports that ancient writings have finally been deciphered, upon careful verification, all this turned out to be a not very accurate interpretation of oral facts and legends

Several years ago, paleontologist David Steadman and several other researchers carried out the first systematic study of Easter Island in order to find out what its flora and fauna were once like. The result was evidence for a new, surprising and instructive interpretation of the history of its settlers.

According to one version, Easter Island was settled around 400 AD. e. (although radiocarbon dating data obtained by scientists Terry Hunt and Carl Lipo from the University of California (USA) during the study of eight samples of charcoal from Anakena indicate that the island of Rapa Nui was inhabited around 1200 AD, ) The islanders grew bananas, taro, sweet potatoes, sugar cane, and mulberries. In addition to chickens, there were also rats on the island, which arrived with the first settlers.

The period of production of the statues dates back to 1200-1500. The number of inhabitants by that time ranged from 7,000 to 20,000 people. To lift and move the statue, several hundred people were enough, who used ropes and rollers from trees, which were available in sufficient quantities at that time.

The painstaking work of archaeologists and paleontologists has shown that approximately 30,000 years before the arrival of people and in the first years of their stay, the island was not at all as deserted as it is now. A subtropical forest of trees and undergrowth rose above the shrubs, grasses, ferns and turf. The forest contained tree daisies, hauhau trees, which can be used to make ropes, and toromiro, which is useful as fuel. There were also varieties of palm trees that are not now on the island, but formerly there were so many of them that the base of the trees was densely covered with their pollen. They are related to the Chilean palm, which grows up to 32 m and has a diameter of up to 2 m. Tall, branchless trunks were ideal material for skating rinks and canoe construction. They also provided edible nuts and juice from which Chileans make sugar, syrup, honey and wine.

Relatively cold coastal waters provided fishing only in a few places. The main marine prey were dolphins and seals. To hunt them, they went out into the open sea and used harpoons. Before the arrival of people, the island was an ideal place for birds, because they did not have any enemies here. Albatrosses, gannets, frigate birds, fulmars, parrots and other birds nested here - 25 species in total. It was probably the richest nesting site in the entire Pacific Ocean.

Around the 800s, forest destruction began. Layers of charcoal from forest fires began to appear more and more often, tree pollen became less and less, and pollen from grasses that replaced the forest appeared more and more. No later than 1400, the palm trees disappeared completely, not only as a result of cutting down, but also because of the ubiquitous rats, which did not give them the opportunity to recover: a dozen surviving remains of nuts preserved in the caves showed signs of being chewed by rats. Such nuts could not germinate. The hauhau trees did not disappear completely, but there were no longer enough of them to make ropes.

In the 15th century, not only the palm trees disappeared, but the entire forest disappeared. It was destroyed by people who cleared areas for gardens, cut down trees to build canoes, to make skating rinks for sculptures, and for heating. The rats ate the seeds. It is likely that the birds died out due to polluted flowers and a decrease in fruit yield. What happened is what happens everywhere in the world where forests are destroyed: most of the forest inhabitants disappear. All species of local birds and animals have disappeared on the island. All coastal fish were also caught. Small snails were used as food. From the diet of people by the 15th century. the dolphins disappeared: there was nothing to go out to sea on, and there was nothing to make harpoons from. It came down to cannibalism.

The paradise that opened to the first settlers became almost lifeless 1600 years later. Fertile soils, an abundance of food, plenty of building materials, sufficient living space, and all opportunities for a comfortable existence were destroyed. At the time of Heyerdahl's visit to the island, there was only a toromiro tree on the island; now he is no longer there.

It all started with the fact that several centuries after arriving on the island, people began, like their Polynesian ancestors, to install stone idols on platforms. Over time, the statues became larger; their heads began to be decorated with red 10-ton crowns; the spiral of competition was unwinding; Rival clans tried to outdo each other with displays of health and strength like the Egyptians building their giant pyramids. On the island, as in modern America, there was a complex politic system distribution of available resources and integration of the economy in various areas.

An 1873 engraving from the English newspaper Harper Weekly. The engraving is signed: “Easter Island Stone Idols Festival Dancing Tatoos.”

The ever-growing population depleted the forests faster than they could regenerate; vegetable gardens took up more and more space; the soil, devoid of forests, springs and streams dried up; the trees that were spent on transporting and lifting the statues, as well as on building canoes and dwellings, were not enough even for cooking. As birds and animals were destroyed, famine set in. The fertility of arable lands decreased due to wind and rain erosion. Droughts have begun. Intensive chicken breeding and cannibalism did not solve the food problem. Statues prepared for moving with sunken cheeks and visible ribs are evidence of the onset of hunger.

With food scarce, the islanders could no longer support the chiefs, bureaucracy, and shamans who administered the society. The surviving islanders told the first Europeans to visit them how the centralized system had been replaced by chaos and the warlike class had defeated the hereditary leaders. The stones appeared to depict spears and daggers made by the warring parties in the 1600s and 1700s; They are still scattered throughout Easter Island. By 1700 the population was between a quarter and a tenth of its former size. People moved into caves to hide from their enemies. Around 1770, rival clans began knocking over each other's statues and cutting off their heads. The last statue was toppled and desecrated in 1864.

As the picture of the decline of the civilization of Easter Island appeared before the researchers, they asked themselves: “Why didn’t they look back, didn’t realize what was happening, didn’t stop before it was too late?” What were they thinking when they cut down the last palm tree?

Most likely, the disaster did not occur suddenly, but stretched out over several decades. The changes occurring in nature were not noticeable for one generation. Only old people, looking back on their childhood years, could realize what was happening and understand the threat posed by the destruction of forests, but the ruling class and stonemasons, afraid of losing their privileges and jobs, treated the warnings in the same way as today's loggers in the northwestern United States: “Work is more important than forest!”

The trees gradually became smaller, thinner and less significant. Once upon a time, the last fruit-bearing palm was cut off, and the young shoots were destroyed along with the remains of bushes and undergrowth. No one noticed the death of the last young palm tree.

The flora of the island is very poor: experts count no more than 30 species of plants growing on Rapa Nui. Most of them were brought from other islands of Oceania, America, and Europe. Many plants that were previously widespread on Rapa Nui have been exterminated. Between the 9th and 17th centuries there was active cutting down of trees, which led to the disappearance of forests on the island (probably before that, palm trees of the species Paschalococos disperta grew on it). Another reason was rats eating tree seeds. Due to irrational human economic activities and other factors, the resulting accelerated soil erosion caused enormous damage to agriculture, as a result of which the population of Rapa Nui decreased significantly.

One of the extinct plants is Sophora toromiro, whose local name is toromiro. This plant on the island in the past played an important role in the culture of the Rapa Nui people: “talking tablets” with local pictograms were made from it.

The trunk of the toromiro, with a diameter of a human thigh and thinner, was often used in the construction of houses; spears were also made from it. In the 19th-20th centuries, this tree was exterminated (one of the reasons was that the young shoots were destroyed by sheep brought to the island).

Another plant on the island is the mulberry tree, whose local name is mahute. In the past, this plant also played a significant role in the life of the islanders: white clothing called tapa was made from the bast of the mulberry tree. After the arrival of the first Europeans on the island - whalers and missionaries - the importance of mahute in the life of the Rapanui people decreased.

The roots of the ti plant, or Dracaena terminalis, were used to make sugar. This plant was also used to make dark blue and green powder, which was then applied to the body as tattoos.

Makoi (rap. makoi) (Thespesia populnea) was used for carving.

One of the island's surviving plants, which grows on the slopes of the Rano Kao and Rano Raraku craters, is Scirpus californicus, used in the construction of houses.

In recent decades, small growths of eucalyptus have begun to appear on the island. In the 18th-19th centuries, grapes, bananas, melons, and sugar cane were brought to the island.

Before the arrival of Europeans on the island, the fauna of Easter Island was mainly represented by marine animals: seals, turtles, crabs. Until the 19th century, chickens were bred on the island. Species of the local fauna that previously inhabited Rapa Nui have become extinct. For example, the rat species Rattus exulans, which was used as food by local residents in the past. Instead, rats of the species Rattus norvegicus and Rattus rattus were brought to the island by European ships, which became carriers of various diseases previously unknown to the Rapanui people.

Currently, the island is home to 25 species of seabirds and 6 species of land birds.

The statistics for moai are as follows. The total number of moai is 887. The number of moai that are installed on Ahu pedestals is 288 (32 percent of the total). The number of moai that stand on the slopes of the Rano Raraku volcano, where the moai carving quarry was located, is 397 (45 percent of the total). The number of moai that lie scattered throughout the island is 92 (10 percent of the total). Moai have different heights - from 4 to 20 meters. The largest of them stand alone on the slope of the Rano Raraku volcano.

They are neck-deep in sediment that has accumulated on the island over the long history of this piece of land. Some moai stood on stone pedestals called ahu by the natives. The number of ahu exceeds three hundred. The size of ahu also varies - from several tens of meters to two hundred meters. The largest moai, nicknamed "El Gigante", is 21.6 meters high. It is located in the Rano Raraku quarry and weighs approximately 145-165 tons. The largest moai standing on a pedestal is located on ahu Te Pito Kura. He has the nickname Paro, his height is about 10 meters, and his weight is about 80 tons.

Mysteries of Easter Island.

Easter Island is full of mysteries. Everywhere on the island you can see entrances to caves, stone platforms, grooved alleys leading directly to the ocean, huge statues, and signs on stones.

One of the main mysteries of the island, which has haunted several generations of travelers and researchers, remains completely unique stone statues - moai. These are stone idols of various sizes - from 3 to 21 meters. On average, the weight of one statue is from 10 to 20 tons, but among them there are real colossi weighing from 40 to 90 tons.

The glory of the island began with these stone statues. It was completely incomprehensible how they could appear on an island lost in the ocean with sparse vegetation and a “wild” population. Who hewed them out, dragged them to the shore, placed them on specially made pedestals and crowned them with weighty headdresses?

The statues have an extremely strange appearance - they have very large heads with heavy protruding chins, long ears and no legs at all. Some have red stone “caps” on their heads. To which human tribe did those whose portraits remained on the island in the form of moai belong? A pointed, raised nose, thin lips, slightly protruded as if in a grimace of mockery and contempt. Deep grooves under the brow ridges, a large forehead - who are they?

Clickable

Some statues have necklaces carved in stone, or tattoos made with a chisel. The face of one of the stone giants is riddled with holes. Perhaps in ancient times, the sages who lived on the island, studying the movement of the heavenly bodies, tattooed their faces with a map of the starry sky?

The eyes of the statues look to the sky. Into the sky - the same as when centuries ago, a new homeland opened up for those who sailed over the horizon?

In former times, the islanders were convinced that the moai protected their land and themselves from evil spirits. All standing moai face the island. Incomprehensible as time, they are immersed in silence. These are mysterious symbols of a bygone civilization.

It is known that the sculptures were carved out of volcanic lava at one of the ends of the island, and then the finished figures were carried along three main roads to the sites of ceremonial pedestals - ahu - scattered along coastline. The largest ahu, now destroyed, was 160 m long, and on its central platform, about 45 m long, there were 15 statues.

The vast majority of statues lie unfinished in quarries or along ancient roads. Some of them are frozen in the depths of the crater of the Rano Raraku volcano, some go beyond the crest of the volcano and seem to be heading towards the ocean. Everything seemed to stop at one moment, engulfed in a whirlwind of an unknown cataclysm. Why did the sculptors suddenly stop working? Everything was left in place - stone axes, unfinished statues, and stone giants, as if frozen on the path in their movement, as if people simply abandoned their work for a minute and were never able to return to it.

Some statues, previously installed on stone platforms, have been toppled and broken. The same applies to the stone platforms - hoo.

The construction of ahu required no less effort and skill than the creation of the statues themselves. It was necessary to make blocks and form them into an even pedestal. The density with which the bricks fit together is amazing. Why the first axy were built (their age is about 700-800 years) is still unclear. Subsequently, they were often used as burial places and perpetuating the memory of leaders.

Excavations carried out on several sections of ancient roads, along which the islanders supposedly carried multi-ton statues (sometimes over a distance of more than 20 kilometers), showed that all the roads clearly bypassed flat areas. The roads themselves are V- or U-shaped hollows about 3.5 meters wide. In some areas there are long connecting fragments, shaped like curbstones. In some places, pillars dug outside the curbs are clearly visible - perhaps they served as supports for some kind of device like a lever. Scientists have not yet established the exact date of construction of these roads, however, according to researchers, the process of moving the statues was completed on Easter Island around 1500 BC.

Another mystery: simple calculations show that over hundreds of years a small population could not carve, transport and install even half of the existing statues. Ancient wooden tablets with carved writings were found on the island. Most of them were lost during the conquest of the island by Europeans. But some signs have survived. The letters went from left to right, and then in the reverse order - from right to left. It took a long time to decipher the signs written on them. And only at the beginning of 1996 in Moscow it was announced that all 4 surviving text tablets had been deciphered. It is curious that in the language of the islanders there is a word denoting slow movement without the help of legs. Levitation? Was this fantastic method used when transporting and installing the moai?

And one more mystery. Old maps around Easter Island show other areas. Oral traditions tell of the land slowly sinking under water. Other legends tell of catastrophes: about the fiery staff of the god Uvok, which split the earth. Couldn't more people have existed here in ancient times? large islands or even an entire continent with a highly developed culture and technology? They even came up with it for him beautiful name Pacifica.

Some scientists suggest that there is still a certain clan (order) of Easter people that preserves the secrets of their ancestors and hides them from the uninitiated in ancient knowledge.

Easter Island has many names:

Hititeairagi (rap. Hititeairagi), or Hiti-ai-rangi (rap. Hiti-ai-rangi);

Tekaouhangoaru (rap. Tekaouhangoaru);

Mata-Kiterage (rap. Mata-Kiterage - translated from Rapanui “eyes looking into the sky”);

Te-Pito-te-henua (rap. Te-Pito-te-henua - “navel of the earth”);

Rapa Nui (Rapa Nui - “Great Rapa”), a name mainly used by whalers;

San Carlos Island, named by Gonzalez Don Felipe in honor of the King of Spain;

Teapi (rap. Teapi) - that’s what James Cook called the island;

Vaihu (rap. Vaihu), or Vaihou (rap. Vaihou) - this name was also used by James Cook, and later by Forster Johann Georg Adam and La Perouse Jean Francois de Galot (a bay in the north-east of the island was named after him);

Easter Island, so named by the Dutch navigator Jacob Roggeveen because he discovered it on Easter Day 1722. Very often, Easter Island is called Rapa Nui (translated as “Big Rapa”), although it is not of Rapanui, but of Polynesian origin. This

The island received its name thanks to Tahitian navigators, who used it to distinguish between Easter Island and Rapa Island, which lies 650 km south of Tahiti. The very name "Rapa Nui" has caused a lot of controversy among linguists about the correct spelling of this word. Among

English-speaking specialists use the word “Rapa Nui” (2 words) to name the island, the word “Rapanui” (1 word) when talking about the people or local culture.

Easter Island is a province within the Chilean region of Valparaiso, headed by a governor accredited to the Chilean government and appointed by the president. Since 1984, the governor of the island can only be local(the first was Sergio Rapu Haoa, a former archaeologist and museum curator). Administratively, the province of Easter Island includes the uninhabited islands of Sala y Gomez. Since 1966, the settlement of Hanga Roa has elected a local council of 6 members, headed by a mayor, every four years.

There are about two dozen police officers on the island, mainly responsible for security at the local airport.

The Chilean armed forces (mainly the Navy) are also present. The current currency on the island is the Chilean peso (US dollars are also in circulation on the island). Easter Island is a duty-free zone, so tax revenues to the island's budget are relatively small. It largely consists of government subsidies.

colossus (height 6 m) after excavations Easter Island (after: Heyerdahl, 1982

By the way, this is a prop thrown into the sea during the filming of another film on the island. So there were no underwater statues.

Here's another theory of what it should look like.

Regarding all sorts of mysterious structures, let me remind you, or for example, what it was like

Easter Island reveals its secrets

based on materials from the book by V. Popova, L. Andrianova “The Despair of the Images of Easter Island”

© V.V. Popova, L.V. Andrianova

Today Easter Island is a complete mystery, no matter which way you approach it. Nothing is clear. Questions even arise about how Peruvian plants, including totora bulrush and sweet potatoes, originated there. However, as research progressed, Easter Island gradually turned from a complete mystery into a regular project for creating an artificial island, but... by extraterrestrial civilizations. Extraterrestrial civilizations decided to tell humanity about their future and for this they built a volcanic island, on which they began to implement one of the most amazing (for us) engineering plans.

First of all, a territory with a certain landscape was created, and then, in accordance with the pictogram, individual elements were created that were supposed to represent this pictogram.

Unknown totori flight

Just one look at the lake of the Rano Raraka volcano caused a storm of emotions among botanists. No, scientists and researchers were not struck by the magical beauty of a freshwater lake in the mouth of a long-extinct volcano.

The reed caused a storm of emotions among botanists. Totora reed, which is known to grow only in Lake Titicaca in Peru. The same elementary question in botany rushed like a whirlwind and was twisted into the very depths of the brain: how??? How did a plant belonging to the pure family end up on Easter Island? American species. This freshwater totora...

The monocotyledonous plant totora reed forms extensive thickets along the banks of fresh water bodies. The triangular stem and highly elongated upper limb, usually with an inflorescence, are known to every botanist.

Swedish botanist and Antarctic explorer Scottsberg argued that totora reed could only be brought to the island by people, because it does not reproduce by seeds, but only by new shoots arising from root shoots. Scottsberg noted that, apparently, the aborigines brought this South American freshwater plant to Easter Island, which is not capable of traveling thousands of kilometers either by sea or by air. The issue with the totora remained unresolved...

But it’s not just the totora reed that has puzzled botanists. The yam or sweet potato also made me think.
The same question arose: how did the American sweet potato appear on Easter Island? The sweet potato tubers with which it reproduces quickly deteriorate in sea water and could not reach the island with ocean currents. Moreover, scientists argued that sweet potato tubers without soil could remain viable for no more than one to one and a half months. Thor Heyerdahl's voyage to the Kon-Tiki proved that at least three were required. This means that it was necessary to transport the plant in the ground. Therefore, how the sweet potato spread over such long distances is still a subject of scientific debate.

It wasn't just totora and sweet potato that raised questions. There were many other plants on Easter Island, with similar questions about the possibility of appearing on the island. Thus, to this day, the question of how plants from Peru got to Easter Island has remained unresolved. The answer is provided by extraterrestrial civilizations.

Extraterrestrial civilizations, creating Easter Island, took care of the people who were supposed to live here. Given the extreme remoteness of the island, they brought essential plants from Peru for food and construction so that people could somehow organize their lives. Extraterrestrial civilizations have created a set of plants similar to the one they did in Peru. Botanists have counted more than 30 such plants on Easter Island. Among them are totora and sweet potato.

Information technologies of extraterrestrial civilizations are based on the action of united consciousness

Researchers note that on the island the incredible capabilities of people do not obey the laws of logic. How were the idols made and installed, which required incredible effort and enormous labor costs? This is one of the main secrets of Easter Island. How the inhabitants of the island, without the use of technology, lifted multi-ton stone caps quite high greater height and carefully placed them on the heads of the idols? It is also unclear how the ancient architects managed to drag completely finished polished figures of idols over long distances without damaging them.

In fact, all this was done by extraterrestrial civilizations using information technology. The work on Easter Island was no different from all the others carried out by extraterrestrial civilizations in different parts globe. Just as everywhere else, they guided them through the action of the united consciousness.

The signature of extraterrestrial civilizations that cannot be faked

Information technologies of extraterrestrial civilizations are distinguished by a seamless method of connecting stones, in which even a razor blade cannot be inserted between them. This is how the peculiarity of the information world manifests itself, in which there is neither space nor time. The fusion of stones is the result of the action of a united consciousness caused in the material world. It arises when the set goal is realized and the rearrangements that arise in the information world.

Often, extraterrestrial civilizations insert small quadrangular elements made of the same material into a masonry of large or even huge multi-ton stones. At the same time, they weld the edges of the insert with the main stone mass. Similar inclusions forming carved mosaic masonry are found in other works of extraterrestrial civilizations - in different countries and even on different continents.

This is like a signature of extraterrestrial civilizations, their “facsimile”, which clearly manifests information technology. Even today, this “signature” is almost impossible to fake. They did this so that we would immediately remove all doubts about whose work this was.

On Easter Island, the seamless masonry of ahu Vinapu with a quadrangular insert signifies the transition from individual to united consciousness. She exhibits the use of information technology. This precision masonry without mortar connects the heaviest multi-ton basalt blocks weighing about seven tons without a gap.

The carved masonry on the ahu Vinapu is reminiscent of the wall masonry in Cusco, Peru, which dates back to the pre-Inca period. This discovery points to the widespread use of information technology by extraterrestrial civilizations and bridges the gap between Easter Island and Peru in South America.

However, extraterrestrial civilizations are not on Earth to amaze us with their skills. They are trying to convince us of the need to unite the consciousness of civilization for the Transition to a new cycle of life.

Extraterrestrial civilizations themselves showed the way to the island for people through channeling in dreams

The legend about the first aborigines of the island proves that extraterrestrial civilizations themselves showed the way to the island for people through channeling in a dream, giving the main landmarks, among which was the Rano Kau volcano and three nearby islands, which were even given a name in a dream, which translated means “ children standing in the water."

People who arrived on the island saw huge statues and walking idols. Later, legends were born about the supernatural power of manna, with the help of which the idols walked on their own. By this time, extraterrestrial civilizations had already stopped all work on the island.

All work on Easter Island was carried out by extraterrestrial civilizations using the action of a united consciousness. Multi-ton giants ten meters or more high walking along the island are a demonstration of a special program of extraterrestrial civilizations, also launched by the action of a united consciousness and showing the miracle of their information technology, unattainable for us.

The symbolism of consciousness is the basis of the Rongorongo writing

People who arrived on Easter Island used images of symbols of the consciousness of extraterrestrial civilizations. The Rapanui people transferred petroglyphs with symbols of consciousness from the rocks to the body in the form of a tattoo.

They copied the symbols of extraterrestrial civilizations onto tablets, adding them with images of fish, boats, oars and others. This set of symbols of consciousness was called the Rongorongo writing. The symbolism of Rongorongo consists of 800 different graphic characters.

Unfinished Easter Island Pictogram - Special Technique

Extraterrestrial civilizations understood that if the pictogram on Easter Island were completely finished, then the people of Earth would find an explanation for all the miracles on the island, which would be deeply and firmly confirmed by scientists - archaeologists, historians and others. Everything would be interconnected, and the hypothesis about the construction of Easter Island by extraterrestrial civilizations would simply be unacceptable.

To prevent this from happening, extraterrestrial civilizations decided to use a special technique. They didn't finish the pictogram. In fact, they only created the appearance of its incompleteness - on Easter Island all the elements for a complete decipherment of the pictogram are presented. Consequently, extraterrestrial civilizations have brought the degree of readiness of their project to the possibility of decryption by those who will be given the key.

An informed civilization has a better chance of preserving life

In many messages, especially from 2010, extraterrestrial civilizations convey the need to disseminate information about approaching cataclysms as widely as possible. Extraterrestrial civilizations indicate a way out - with the help of uniting the consciousness of civilization, make the Transition to a safe level of the material world.

Civilization must know that with the help of consciousness it is possible to make Transitions through the levels of the material world. Extraterrestrial civilizations claim that a civilization informed in advance can form a unified consciousness much faster and, thus, has a greater chance of preserving and continuing life.

Easter Island represents two levels of consciousness of civilization. An informed and an unprepared civilization are demonstrated by two types of idols.

One type is the image without eyes, made of gray tuff. The empty eye sockets of the idols show that they are blind. This is how extraterrestrial civilizations depicted humanity before gaining knowledge about the existence of the information world and the Transition.

The second type is idols with red caps on their heads with red pupils made of coral, standing on ahu pedestals. This is how prepared humanity, already illuminated by knowledge, is depicted. These moai have huge, wide-open eyes. These are not blind people wandering in the darkness of ignorance, but people who are confident in their future. They already know about the information world and clearly see their path. They understand that the unification of the consciousness of civilization and the Transition to another level of the material world into a new cycle of life is the only way of salvation from the approaching global cataclysms.

The principle of color separation of information

In order to show the fundamental difference between human ideas at two levels of the universe, extraterrestrial civilizations introduced two colors - gray and red. Using the color gray they depicted the material world, and in red they denoted the information world.

Moai with eyes have caps-cells of individual and united consciousness

Thus, an idol with a red cap, weighing several tons, made of volcanic rock is a representation of man at two levels of the universe:
the body of an idol made of gray tuff is a representation of a person in the material world;
the red cap and eyes are information cells. This is the representation of a person in the information world.

Tukuturi indicates the exit

Only the only Tukuturi idol is made of red tuff. He sits in a kneeling position and depicts the information world, which contains all this information that is most important for the life of mankind.

Along with the message about the inevitability of future cataclysms, the Tukuturi idol simultaneously conveys a way out of this critical situation. The big ears of the idols are designed to hear this information and see the light!

It turns out that in order to continue life we ​​must make the Transition to another level of the material world, where cataclysms do not happen. There a new cycle of our life will begin. We can make this Transition through the unification of the consciousness of the entire civilization of the Earth.

The kneeling pose of the moai conveys to us that humanity on Earth must obey the instructions about the Transition in order to continue life.

If we do not realize the great importance of this information and do not make the Transition, then the life of our civilization will end. This is represented by the suddenly interrupted avenue of blind idols.

To carry out this instruction, the idols stand in whole groups on platforms waiting for the synchronization signal. Maoi on ahu pedestals with a red cap and red pupils of their eyes show that for the Transition of humanity it is necessary to unite the consciousness of all people. This statement is repeated many times by a continuous dotted line, creating the outline of Easter Island from ahu-pedestals with idols standing one after another.

Rano Raraku ridge - a turning point in people's consciousness

The Rano Raraku volcano is the place of birth and development of the consciousness of people who are depicted by stone idols. The main stages of this evolutionary process are presented there.

The small statues with rough features, presented inside the crater of the Rano Raraku volcano, depict the initial consciousness of people with low consciousness and before receiving the commandments.

In contrast, tall and beautiful statues are installed on the outer part of the volcano. However, in order to get to the outer part of the volcano it was necessary to cross the ridge. And people have overcome this most important stage in the development of consciousness.

The ridge of the volcano depicts a turning point in people's consciousness, signifying the commandments. The developing consciousness, enriched with the knowledge of the commandments, leads people forward along the road of evolution. This path is depicted as a path along which the idols walk. Many people have already walked along this path, depicted by moai installed above and below the path. This is humanity moving forward along the road of consciousness. This is how the path of individual improvement of consciousness is shown.

However, this humanity is blind. He is depicted by beautiful tall idols, but... with empty eye sockets.

On the Rano Raraku volcano they are blind because their image does not yet contain the red color of the information world. On this mountain of Rano Raraku sits only a small red idol of Tukuturi, kneeling. However, he is great. Its great importance for people is that it tells people about the information world.

Humanity's Eureka Moment

On the ahu pedestals, other people are depicted. They are already standing at full height with a fully formed body, fingers and eyes. However, without legs...

With the absence of legs, extraterrestrial civilizations wanted to draw our attention to the fact that we have nowhere to run. After all, Easter Island, like our Earth, is a small piece of land in the vast ocean of the universe.

Easter Island clearly shows us the danger of not understanding the situation caused by the critical weakening of the Earth's magnetic field. Extraterrestrial civilizations know that it is impossible to stop cataclysms, and they cannot help in any way. Only we ourselves can save ourselves.

There is only one way - the unification of the consciousness of the entire civilization, which vividly depicts the ahu of Tongariki with 15 idols standing on it, and the Transition through dematerialization to another level of the material world, which is depicted by the bird-man.

The many hundreds of bird-man symbols engraved on a small area of ​​wild Orongo rocks depict a united humanity prepared for the Transition to another level.

The center of the world

Near ahu Tongariki on the ocean shore is the Navel of the Earth, sacred place Rapanui people The navel of the Earth is also a separate pictogram. It conveys the most important message that we need to change the mode of consciousness from the fourth level to the fifth. This means moving from individual consciousness to united consciousness. This is our first Transition.

Information about a change in the mode of consciousness is conveyed by five round stones: four equally small ones and one large one in the center. Each stone represents a brain area of ​​an information cell. Small stones are brain regions of individual cells. The large round stone in the center is the brain area of ​​the united consciousness cell.

As is known, an individual cell with a small area of ​​the brain is a representation of a person at the information level of the universe. A united cell with an expanded brain area means the unification of the consciousness of a group of people. In the center there is a large stone, which signifies the united consciousness of humanity.

The four stones form a square, representing the fourth level of consciousness of humanity. A crescent-shaped mound was created around five stones. The crescent is a symbol of united consciousness.

Thus, the pictogram conveys that the people of Earth need to unite their consciousness for the Transition to the next cycle of life. The Navel of the Earth (rap. Te-Pito-te-whenua) is the heart of Easter Island. It is not for nothing that Te Pito te whenua is one of the names of the island.

Three islands of “children standing in the water” indicate the Transition

In the Easter Island pictogram, the Rano Kao volcano depicts an information cell with a shifted brain area. The brain region of the cell depicts the crater of the Rano Kao volcano. To form the crescent symbol of united consciousness, the crater is shifted towards the ocean shore. To create a thin line connecting the horns of the crescent moon, extraterrestrial civilizations moved the crater to the very edge of the island to the limit, creating a thin ridge behind which is the steep cliff of the Rano Kao volcano into the ocean.

Near the Rano Kau volcano there are three small islands: Motu Nui, Motu Iti and Motu Kao Kao. They are called, translated from Rapanui, “children standing in the water.”

The farthest rocky island from the Rano Kao volcano largest area– Motu Nui – looks like a trident. The trident and information cell are analogous symbols. Consequently, the trident, just like the cell, is a reflection of a person in the information world:

The trident is the key to deciphering the quantitative symbolism of extraterrestrial civilizations. The trident is a symbol of the fourth level of consciousness - a person, including the three previous levels of consciousness.

The smallest island, Motu-Kao-Kao, is located directly next to the Rano-Kao volcano. It is the tallest of the three - 70 meters and looks like a needle pointing upward. There is a magnetic anomaly on this island.

In the pictogram of extraterrestrial civilizations, a needle-island directed vertically upward means the Transition. The magnetic anomaly exhibits a strong residual effect of unified consciousness. It arose as a result of the fact that when creating this high and very thin needle island, extraterrestrial civilizations used the strong effect of united consciousness. It was necessary so that the thin island could withstand ocean storms for a long time. As a result, even today there is a magnetic anomaly on the island.

Near the trident island of Motu Nui is the islet of Motu Iti. The very close location to the trident indicates that the island of Motu-Iti depicts a cell of the united consciousness of humanity.
The shape of the trident island of Moto Nui confirms that the Rano Kao volcano represents a shift in the brain region of the human information cell.

Thus, the three islands of Motu-Nui, Motu-Iti and Motu-Kao-Kao indicate that the individual consciousness of a person must move into a united consciousness and only then can the Transition occur. Volcano Rano Kao confirms this information and shows that the unification of consciousness for the Transition will involve a shift of the brain area to the cell boundary with the formation of a crescent of united consciousness.

The cliff of Rano-Kao into the ocean symbolizes the dematerialization of humanity from the level of global cataclysms

Near the three islands indicating the Transition, extraterrestrial civilizations engraved hundreds of bird-man petroglyphs on the wild rocks near the village of Orongo. They depict the moment of the Transition of the united humanity gathered together to another level of the material world - into a new cycle of life. Thus, the bird-man is a symbol of the Transition.

The deep cliff of Rano Kao into the ocean depicts dematerialization. The last step on the ground and... dematerialization into the invisible world. This is how the Transition of humanity to another level is depicted, which we must make in order to continue life.

This visual technique for demonstrating a completely new and unusual for us process of dematerialization, which seems like science fiction today, was repeatedly used by extraterrestrial civilizations in Peru. They depicted dematerialization using staircase-terraces ending at the edge of cliffs. These steps leading to nowhere are present everywhere in Peru: in Ollataytambo, Machu Picchu... everywhere...

Extraterrestrial civilizations used the same technique to depict dematerialization on Easter Island. They showed it with a deep cliff of the Rano Kao volcano into the ocean.

In their messages, extraterrestrial civilizations inform that this dematerialization is associated with the Transition to another Higher level of the material world. There the next cycle of life will begin - the cycle of Correction. Therefore, on Easter Island, an image of a bird-man appeared above the cliff. Many pictograms of bird-people depicted nearby on the rocks of Orongo show the way for humanity to the Transition. Orongo is known to contain more than 480 cave paintings of the Birdman and hundreds of Makemake images. This is how the aliens depicted the Transition of an entire civilization.

Bird-man symbol like pictogram

The bird-man glyph comes in several types. However, all of them, with the help of arms and legs, sometimes a rounded back, talk about the process of formation of a united consciousness: from two individual cells one cell of a united consciousness is formed. At the same time, the head represents a cell of the united consciousness, and the eye – an individual cell. The long beak informs about the cycle of Correction. When depicted on rocks, the beak is usually forked. This indicates that the Correction cycle will take place in the mode of unified consciousness.

Extraterrestrial civilizations in pictograms usually represent the Transition in the form of a flight, as an analogue understandable to us. That's why birds appear in the fields. In the Nazca Desert, the symbol of the Transition is the Hummingbird, as well as the Pelican, Flamingo and other birds. The beak of the Hummingbird and other birds in the Nazca pictographs tells of a long cycle of Correction.

The symbol of the Transition in crop circles is often swallows. The transition is also depicted by a Beetle, a Bee, and a Dragonfly.

Thus, it is this place on the cliff of the Rano Kao volcano that is the culmination of the entire pictogram. It conveys information that the civilization of the Earth must make its first Transition-flight, depicted by a bird-man.

This is where the ritual associated with the black tern arose - a sea swallow, whose egg is a symbol of dematerialization, transmitting a signal to humanity for the Transition!

Ritual for the Bird-man – channeling about the Transition

In ancient times, every year in Orongo a bird-man was appointed who ruled the island for one year. According to ancient custom, the winner was the one who performed a certain sequence of actions the fastest. He had to descend the vertical slope of the Rano Kao volcano, swim to the farthest of three small islands - Moto Nui, in mortal danger of being torn to pieces by sharks. He had to find a black tern egg there and be the first to bring this egg intact to Easter Island.

The man who overcame mortal danger in the shark-infested ocean that embodies the life of civilization, and nevertheless delivered the first black tern egg to Easter Island, became a bird-man. In this ritual, Easter Island represented the Earth, and the bird-man represented the leader of humanity.

For a whole year after the victory, the bird-man lives on the Rano Raraku volcano. But it was in this volcano that extraterrestrial civilizations made many hundreds of idols depicting people - humanity.
Crowds of Easter Island idols standing on pedestals tell that all humanity needs to unite consciousness for dematerialization. The time has come to make the Transition!

Deciphering the pictogram showed that this annual ritual-competition for the prestigious title of “bird-man” on Easter Island had a deep meaning and was a channeling. Extraterrestrial civilizations conveyed the purpose and sequence of the ritual through the dreams of leaders and priests.

The goal that had to be achieved during the performance of this ritual was to find the first egg of the black tern bird - the sea swallow. The egg had to be found not on any other island, but on the trident-shaped island of Motu Nui.

The shape of the black tern egg is a pointed oval of dematerialization and Transition

The round end of the black tern egg represents the united cell of humanity. The pointed shape of the other end corresponds to a pointed oval - a symbol of dematerialization and Transition. An ordinary chicken egg does not have such a pointed shape. Its sharp end is more rounded.

Thus, the search for the first sea swallow egg symbolized the process of preparing humanity for the Transition.

Pointed oval of dematerialization and Transition in headdresses

Symbols of united consciousness, dematerialization and Transition are also represented in the headdresses of the Rapanui people. An engraving from 1860 shows that the pointed top of the female headdress of the Easter Island inhabitants is made in the shape of a pointed oval of the Transition. A man's headdress made of feathers corresponds to the symbol of dematerialization of the body. The radial stripes of the symbol are created by numerous feathers.

A pointed oval is the result of combining two individual cells, i.e. consciousness of two people:

The struggle for the first egg briefly represented the content of the pictogram about the Transition, created by extraterrestrial civilizations on Easter Island - the need to make the Transition through dematerialization.

The revolution of the rongo-rongo tablet means a revolution of consciousness

The strange, at first glance, sequence of marking of the ancient Rapa Nui writing Rongorongo is also connected with the bird-man ritual. First, the scribe, starting from the bottom groove, carved signs from left to right on one side of the tablet. When he reached the right edge, he turned the board upside down, and cut the second row in the same way from left to right. This sequence is explained as follows.

In accordance with the ritual of the fight for the title of bird-man, the young men swam from the rocks of Orongo to the island of Motu Nui. They found the first egg there and returned back. If you stand on Easter Island facing the main island of Motu Nui, the lower part of the plank will correspond to the Orongo rocks, and the island itself will correspond to the upper part of the plank. Since the competition began from the Orongo rocks, this was the beginning, the foundation, the base. Therefore, the engraver began to write rongo-rongo signs from the bottom groove from left to right, thereby indicating his location on the Orongo rocks - the place where the competition began.

The scribe's cutting of lines from bottom to top is associated with the trajectory of the competition participants swimming for the egg from Orongo to the island of Motu Nui, i.e. down up.

The unusual turning of the tablet from top to bottom signifies the return of the young man from the island of Motu Nui back to Orongo with the first egg found.

The turning over of the tablet also has another explanation. It means a revolution in the consciousness of humanity on Earth. After all, the first egg found shows that a person received the first information about the need for a Transition to a safe level of the material world in connection with the beginning of global cataclysms on the Earth and is bringing this news to people on the island. Since Easter Island is analogous to Earth, this means that man carries the news of the Transition of the entire civilization. The message about the Transition is a revolution in consciousness, since all people of the Earth must move from individual consciousness to a united one.

The unification of the consciousness of the entire civilization as the main condition of the Transition is a qualitative leap in the evolution of humanity. This is a revolution of consciousness!

Crescent of united consciousness in the form of buildings in the village of Orongo

The ritual village of Orongo, associated with the choice of a bird-man, is located on the rocks next to a 300-meter cliff... Extraterrestrial civilizations created there, on dizzying heights of the ridge of the Rano-Kao volcano on the rocks next to the cliff there are about fifty oval structures made of thin and flat basalt slabs.

The oval shape of these buildings and the wide opening at the top in the symbolism of the consciousness of extraterrestrial civilizations depicts a crescent of united consciousness.

Symbolism of consciousness on the “stolen friend”

Once upon a time, in one of the central houses of the village of Orongo, a 2.5-meter idol made of basalt, weighing 4 tons, was installed. On the body of the moai, symbolism was applied on the front and back, which tells how a united consciousness is formed.

Thus, the two nipples in front represent two small areas of the brain of individual cells, and the stomach is an expanded area of ​​​​the combined cell, which is formed as a result of the union of two individual cells.

On the back of this moai there is also symbolism in the form of a cell of united consciousness and three crescents.

This moai was taken by the British and named Hoa Hanakanai? "hidden or stolen friend." Today it is in the British Museum. The moai symbolism works there now. She tells museum visitors in Europe about united consciousness.

The heart-shaped frigate bird-man's bright red craw indicates the Transition

The iconic bird-man title on Easter Island is based on the frigate bird, which is quite rare there. Many petroglyphs depicting a frigate bird-man are engraved on the rocks at Orongo. Hundreds and hundreds of bird-man symbols are depicted on the walls of caves. It turns out that the appearance of the frigate also conveys information about the Transition. The frigate bird is usually a black-plumaged bird related to pelicans and cormorants, 110 cm long, with narrow wings span up to 230 cm, and a long forked tail, like a swallow, and a light weight of about 1.5 kg.
This bird has a completely unusual feature. She inflates a huge bright red throat sac up to 25 cm in size on her chest under her beak, lighting it up like a lantern. The frigate's bright red craw simultaneously depicts two symbols of consciousness. From the side it looks like a crescent of united consciousness. From the front it resembles an elongated heart, due to the bifurcation of the upper part near the neck.

The heart symbol is often found in mounds in the fields and consists of two parts. The upper part of the heart in the form of two touching semicircles is an image of two uniting individual cells. The lower part consists of two tangents to the two upper circles, emanating from the same point. This is an image of half of the pointed oval of the Transition.

Consequently, the symbol of the heart conveys that for the Transition it is necessary to form a unified consciousness of humanity. The forked tail of the frigate symbolizes two cells and shows that for the Transition of humanity it is necessary to unite the consciousness of people.

Bird-man and Make-Make in the symbolism of consciousness

Bird-man cult played such an important role on Easter Island that his image was at one time even present on the Rapa Nui flag of 1876-1888. Four bird-man symbols were depicted around the reimiro. The modern coat of arms of Rapa Nui also contains this symbolism. It consists of two bird-man glyphs touching with their inner wings.

Make-make. On the rocks of Orongo you can often find an engraved image of Make-Make, the supreme deity of Easter Island. On petroglyphs, the Rapanui people represented Make-make as a mask with big eyes. On the rocks of Orongo Make-make is engraved surrounded by numerous images of a bird-man.

The image of Make-Make on Easter Island in the symbolism of extraterrestrial civilizations is a pictogram that talks about the unification of consciousness and the principle of its formation. Eyes are two uniting individual cells. Concentric circles show the expansion of the brain area during the unification of consciousness, as well as the unification of individual cells. The face depicts the result obtained - a cell of united consciousness.

Extraterrestrial civilizations depicted the process of formation of a united consciousness not only in the form of engraved symbols on the rocks of Orongo on Easter Island. One of the huge pictographs that resembles the image of Make Make are the Avebury stone circles. They were built by extraterrestrial civilizations in England during the Neolithic period 2700 - 2500 BC.

Symbolism of consciousness on the body of idols

The body of the moai is a combination of individual elements of the symbolism of extraterrestrial civilizations. So, ears of idols - This is a separate icon. They depict a crescent moon, which arose as a result of a shift in the area of ​​the brain during the formation of unified consciousness. The crescent moon is especially visible on the drooping ears of the Aboriginal islanders.

The upper part of the idol's ear, in the form of a curl, is located in the region of the temporal lobes of the brain. It depicts the brain region of an individual cell. The lower part of the ear in the form of an elongated semi-oval depicts an elongated crescent, which is formed as a result of a shift of the brain region from bottom to top. Below the ear there is a thickening corresponding to the wide part of the crescent of the united consciousness.

Consequently, the movement of the brain cell region goes from bottom to top to the helix located on both sides of the head. The shift of the brain area and the formation of a crescent of united consciousness is shown in many complexes of extraterrestrial civilizations. Thus, the lower part of the Intiguana, the sacred stone of the Incas, to which the Sun was tied in Machu Picchu, Peru, also depicts a shift in the brain region of an individual cell.

Belly and two nipples at the top near the line resembling a yoke - this is a separate pictogram about the united consciousness. Two nipples are two individual cells that connect into a united consciousness cell - the belly. On the other hand, some moai still have an image of a navel on their bellies. The navel is the brain region of an individual cell. As the individual cell expands, it becomes a united cell. cell, which is represented by a convex belly.

Fingers The moai completes the story of consciousness, which is conveyed by other parts of its body. Thus, four thin finger lines, meaning the fourth level of human consciousness, indicate an individual cell.

The fifth finger, shown above, is short and curved upward towards the stomach. The abdomen depicts the expanded brain region of the integrated cell. This shows the transition of humanity’s consciousness from individual to united.

Skinny kava-kava figurines – channeling about the Transition through dematerialization

A real find, from the point of view of the symbolism of consciousness, are the wooden figurines of kava-kava, which translated means “ribs.” Outlandish kava-kava are unique figurines carved from reddish-brown toromiro wood. Kawa-kawa moai are more human-like than idols. The unusualness of the kava-kava figurines and the deviation from the generally accepted image of a person amazes and attracts attention: incredible thinness, which is emphasized by the clarity of protruding parallel lines of ribs, bared teeth, growths on the head, back and shoulders, goiter, bulging eyes, etc.

The image of kava-kava in ancient times was transmitted by extraterrestrial civilizations by channeling to one of the leaders of Easter Island.

A legend about spirits without bodies, but only with ribs. Ancient legends say that the leader (ariki), returning from work, saw two spirits sleeping on a red stone, who had no bodies, but only ribs. There was a third spirit with them. He was not sleeping and therefore shouted: “Wake up, Ariki saw your ribs!” The spirits woke up and saw a man leaving. Having caught up with him, they asked: “What did you see? “Did you notice anything?” “Nothing,” answered Ariki. This was repeated three times, and the spirits disappeared. The leader Tuu-ko-ihu cut out two figurines from firebrands, which exactly depicted the spirits he saw with ugly protruding ribs. This is how the moai kava-kava came into being.

Deciphering the image of kava-kava as a pictogram. Bright and memorable wooden figurines of kava-kava - the image of a lightweight, emaciated moai - is a pictogram. She talks in detail about the formation of a united consciousness and the Transition through dematerialization. Thinness kava-kava is a technique for depicting the absence of the body, which will occur during dematerialization. A symbol of dematerialization is superimposed on the disappearing body - these are ribs.

Kava-kava ribs are a symbol of dematerialization of the body. This symbol is also depicted by numerous other stripes - teeth, eyebrows, beard, etc. The head with bulging eyes, the skull, ears, nose, oval of the face, neck, legs, arms, back, spine, shoulder blades, hips - the same ones are visible everywhere and the same symbols: individual and united cells, crescents, a symbol of body dematerialization, pointed ovals.

The figurines are incredibly varied. However, they have one recurring element - very small feet. This is the main warning of extraterrestrial civilizations that you cannot escape from global cataclysms.

Extraterrestrial civilizations have great all-conquering love and boundless patience for us, which give rise to inexhaustible imagination. These amazing figurines prove for the hundred thousandth time that extraterrestrial civilizations transmit the most important information at every possible moment. They point the way for humanity to the Transition to a safe level of the material world through dematerialization. This Transition can only be accomplished through the unification of the consciousness of all humanity.

How red-haired and white-skinned aborigines with blue eyes appeared on the island

Despite the cessation of the work of extraterrestrial civilizations, the residual aftereffect of the united consciousness was very strong on the island for a long time. It had a certain harmonizing effect on people. People exposed to residual radiation changed their appearance: skin and hair tone, facial features. As a result, people with different skin colors appeared on the island. Among them are white, red-haired people with blue eyes. However, the bulk of the population had dark skin and black hair. The first navigators spoke about this phenomenon as if it were some kind of miracle.

The residual effect of the united consciousness permeates the entire Easter Island to this day. It manifests itself in a very pleasant state that envelops you on the island, relaxation and tranquility. This is why Hollywood stars hold weddings here.

Project of Easter Island as a symbol of consciousness

The Easter Island pictogram, if extraterrestrial civilizations had implemented their project to create an island symbol of consciousness, would look like this. There would be three cells located in the corners of the right triangle island. At the peak with the Poike volcano there would be an individual cell, like an image of a person. The Rano-Kao volcano, located in another sharp corner, is an image of a crescent of united consciousness. This means that as a result of the formation of unified consciousness, a shift in the area of ​​the brain occurred. In the right corner the realization of the set goal would be shown - a cell of the united consciousness of humanity.

The right triangle was not chosen by extraterrestrial civilizations by chance. Angle 90? they wanted to show that a person and his information cell are not simply connected to each other. A person is a projection of his information cell in the material world.

That is why all the moai do not peer into the distance of the vast ocean, in anticipation of rare meetings with strangers who have sailed to them, but gloomily and intensely look into the depths of the island... There, on the top of the Terevaka volcano, there should have been a huge 200-ton moai giant 20 meters high. It was supposed to personify a huge area of ​​the brain of the united consciousness cell of our civilization... This giant would be visible in the ocean from afar - like a lighthouse. However, the already fully created giant remained lying in the quarries... His dreams of uniting humanity have not yet come true... However, this is another separate story about the artificially created symbol island of Easter, which can be read in our book: “The Despair of the Island’s Idols Easter."

The unfinished Easter Island pictograph has finally been read. This is another victory for the daring consciousness of man. By deciphering the Easter Island pictogram and understanding the legends, humanity thereby has a chance to survive in the face of emerging global cataclysms.

Easter Island statues- giant stone heads decorating the entire island.

The small Easter Island in the South Pacific Ocean, belonging to Chile, is one of the most mysterious corners of our planet. Hearing this name, you immediately think of the cult of birds, the mysterious writings of Kohau Rongorongo and the Cyclopean stone platforms of Ahu. But the most important attraction of the island can be called the moai.

Moai - the statues of Easter Island

There are a total of 997 statues on Easter Island. Most of them are placed quite chaotically, but some are lined up in rows. The appearance of stone idols is peculiar, and Easter Island statues cannot be confused with anything else.
For example, there is nothing like it.

Huge heads on puny bodies, faces with characteristic powerful chins and facial features as if carved with an ax - all these are moai statues.

Moai reach a height of five to seven meters. There are some specimens that are ten meters tall, but there are only a few of them on the island. Despite these dimensions, the weight statues on Easter Island on average does not exceed 5 tons. Such low weight is due to the source material.

To create the statue, they used volcanic tuff, which is much lighter than basalt or some other heavy stone. This material is closest in structure to pumice, somewhat reminiscent of a sponge and crumbles quite easily.

Easter Island idols and the first Europeans

In general, there are many secrets in the history of Easter Island. Its discoverer, Captain Juan Fernandez, fearing competitors, decided to keep his discovery, made in 1578, a secret, and some time later he accidentally died under mysterious circumstances. Although whether what the Spaniard found was Easter Island is still unclear.

144 years later, in 1722, the Dutch admiral Jacob Roggeveen stumbled upon Easter Island, and this event happened on the day of Christian Easter. So, quite by accident, the island of Te Pito o te Henua, which translated from the local dialect means the Center of the World, turned into Easter Island.

In his notes, the admiral indicated that the aborigines held ceremonies in front of stone heads, lit fires and fell into a trance-like state, swaying back and forth.

What the moai were for the islanders was never determined, but most likely the stone sculptures served as idols. Researchers also suggest that the stone sculptures could be statues of deceased ancestors.

It is interesting that Admiral Roggeveen and his squadron not only sailed in this area, he tried in vain to find the elusive land of Davis, an English pirate, which, according to his descriptions, was discovered 35 years before the Dutch expedition. True, no one except Davis and his team saw the newly discovered archipelago again.

In subsequent years, interest in the island declined. In 1774, James Cook arrived on the island, and discovered that over the years, some Easter Island idols were overturned. Most likely this was due to a war between Aboriginal tribes, but official confirmation was never obtained.

The standing idols were last seen in 1830. A French squadron then arrived on Easter Island. After this, the statues, erected by the islanders themselves, were never seen again. All of them were either overturned or destroyed.

How did the statues appear on Easter Island?

Distant masters carved “” on the slopes of the Rano Roraku volcano, located in the eastern part of the island, from soft volcanic tuff. Then the finished statues were lowered down the slope and placed along the perimeter of the island, over a distance of more than 10 km.

The height of most idols ranges from five to seven meters, while later sculptures reached 10 and 12 meters. The tuff, or, as it is also called, pumice, from which they are made, has a sponge-like structure and easily crumbles even with a slight impact on it. so the average weight of a “moai” does not exceed 5 tons.

Stone ahu - platform-pedestals: reached 150 m in length and 3 m in height, and consisted of pieces weighing up to 10 tons.

All the moai that are on this moment located on the island, were restored in the 20th century. The latest restoration work took place relatively recently - between 1992 and 1995.

At one time, Admiral Roggeveen, recalling his trip to the island, claimed that the aborigines lit fires in front of the “moai” idols and squatted next to them, bowing their heads. After that, they folded their hands and swung them up and down. Of course, this observation is not able to explain who the idols really were for the islanders.

Roggeveen and his companions could not understand how, without using thick wooden rollers and strong ropes, it was possible to move and install such blocks. The islanders had no wheels, no draft animals, and no other source of energy other than their own muscles.

Ancient legends say that the statues walked on their own. There is no point in asking how this actually happened, because there is no documentary evidence left anyway.

There are many hypotheses about the movement of the “moai”, some are even confirmed by experiments, but all this proves only one thing - it was possible in principle. And the statues were moved by the inhabitants of the island and no one else. So why did they do this? This is where the differences begin.

It still remains a mystery who created all these stone faces and why, whether there is any meaning in the chaotic placement of statues on the island, and why some of the statues were overturned. There are many theories that answer these questions, but none of them have been officially confirmed.

Everything that exists on the island today was restored in the 20th century.

The last restoration of fifteen “moai” located between the Rano Roraku volcano and the Poike Peninsula occurred relatively recently - from 1992 to 1995. Moreover, the Japanese were involved in the restoration work.

Local aborigines could clarify the situation if they lived to this day. The fact is that in the mid-19th century, a smallpox epidemic broke out on the island, which was brought from the continent. The disease wiped out the islanders...

In the second half of the 19th century, the cult of the bird man also died. This strange, unique ritual for all of Polynesia was dedicated to Makemaka, the supreme deity of the islanders. The chosen one became his earthly incarnation. Moreover, interestingly, elections were held regularly, once a year.

At the same time, servants or warriors took the most active part in them. It depended on them whether their owner, the head of the family clan, would become Tangata-manu, or a bird-man. It is to this ritual that the main cult center, the rock village of Orongo on the largest volcano Rano Kao in the western tip of the island, owes its origin. Although, perhaps, Orongo existed long before the emergence of the cult of Tangata-manu.

Legends say that the heir to the legendary Hotu Matua, the first leader to arrive on the island, was born here. In turn, his descendants, hundreds of years later, themselves gave the signal for the start of the annual competition.

Easter Island was and remains a truly “blank” spot on the map of the globe. It is difficult to find a piece of land similar to it that would keep so many secrets that most likely will never be solved.

In the spring, messengers of the god Makemake - black sea swallows - flew to the small islands of Motu-Kao-Kao, Motu-Iti and Motu-Nui, located not far from the coast. The warrior who was the first to find the first egg of these birds and swim it to his master received seven beautiful women as a reward. Well, the owner became a leader, or rather, a bird-man, receiving universal respect, honor and privileges.

The last Tangata Manu ceremony took place in the 60s of the 19th century. After the disastrous pirate raid of the Peruvians in 1862, when the pirates took the entire male population of the island into slavery, there was no one left to choose the bird-man.

Why did the Easter Island natives carve moai statues in a quarry? Why did they stop this activity? The society that created the statues must have been significantly different from the 2,000 people Roggeveen saw. It had to be well organized. What happened to him?

For more than two and a half centuries, the mystery of Easter Island remained unsolved. Most theories about the history and development of Easter Island are based on oral traditions.

This happens because no one still can understand what is written in written sources - the famous tablets “ko hau motu mo rongorongo”, which roughly means a manuscript for recitation.

Most of them were destroyed by Christian missionaries, but those that survived could probably shed light on the history of this mysterious island. And although the scientific world has more than once been excited by reports that ancient writings have finally been deciphered, upon careful verification, all this turned out to be a not very accurate interpretation of oral facts and legends

Easter Island idols: history

Several years ago, paleontologist David Steadman and several other researchers carried out the first systematic study of Easter Island in order to find out what its flora and fauna were once like. The result was evidence for a new, surprising and instructive interpretation of the history of its settlers.

Easter Island was settled around 400 AD. e. The period of production of the statues dates back to 1200-1500. The number of inhabitants by that time ranged from 7,000 to 20,000 people. To lift and move the statue, several hundred people were enough, who used ropes and rollers from trees, which were available in sufficient quantities at that time.

The paradise that opened to the first settlers became almost lifeless 1600 years later. Fertile soils, an abundance of food, plenty of building materials, sufficient living space, and all opportunities for a comfortable existence were destroyed. At the time of Heyerdahl's visit to the island, there was only a toromiro tree on the island; now he is no longer there.

It all started with the fact that several centuries after arriving on the island, people began, like their Polynesian ancestors, to install stone idols on platforms. Over time, the statues became larger; their heads began to be decorated with red 10-ton crowns.

Easter Island - amazing place, where thousands of tourists from all over the world strive to get. We have already discussed a lot about Easter Island. They analyzed and searched, and I even showed it to you.

But in all these discussions, I somehow paid little attention to where and how these huge heads and statues appeared. This place is located on the lower slopes of Terevak - the largest and youngest of the three extinct volcanoes that actually form Rapa Nui (better known as Easter Island).

Let's take a closer look at this...

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Among the huge number of attractions, there is a special place on this island - the Rano Raraku volcanic crater made of compressed volcanic ash or tuff. This crater is fraught with interesting mysteries.

Rano Raraku is an extinct volcano about 150 meters high, located in the eastern part of the island in the middle of a grassy plain, 20 kilometers from the city of Hanga Roa and 1 kilometer from the coast. The southeastern slope of the volcano partially collapsed and exposed the rock - yellow-brown tuff with numerous inclusions. It is to this rock that the volcano owes its popularity - it became the birthplace of the famous Moai stone idols.

In an oval crater measuring 350 by 280 meters lies a freshwater lake, the banks of which are densely overgrown with totora reeds. Until recently, this lake served local population source of fresh water.

The volcano was formed during the Holocene period. It is a secondary volcano of Maunga Terewaka, the island's largest elevation. When did it happen last eruption, unknown.

Rano Raraku is shaped like a pyroclastic cone. The height of its peak is five hundred eleven meters. The slopes of the volcano are covered with a soft grass carpet, reminiscent of alpine meadows; the southeastern slope is partially collapsed.

For almost five centuries, Rano Raraku was used for quarrying. It was here that the stone for most of Easter Island's famous monolithic sculptures, known as moai, was quarried. Today you can see the remains of as many as 387 moai of varying degrees of completion literally encircling the crater. Rano Raraku today is part of World Heritage national park Rapa Nui.

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Almost all of the statues on Easter Island (95%) were carved from the crater's quarries and then somehow transported many kilometers to various locations around the island. Nobody knows how they did it. Moai are visible on the slope, which for some reason were either not completed or were not moved to the right place

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There are many interesting things in this place. For example, such unique plants as the “totora” reed, which overgrown the shores of the lake in the crater, are considered by some people to be the first evidence of contact with the South American continent. Totora have been growing in this area for at least 30,000 years, long before people settled on Rapa Nui. The southern slope of Rano Raraku on Easter Island is literally littered with large numbers of moai.

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Some of them are half buried in the ground, while others are unfinished. But the most fascinating sight at Rano Raraku is the moai in the quarry. Some of them are unfinished, and others cannot be reached today because they are located very high on the outside of the crater. Here you can see one of the largest examples of moai, which is 21.6 meters high. It is almost twice the size of its “brothers” for which the coast of Easter Island has become famous.

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The moai's weight is estimated at 270 tons and is many times the weight of any moai found elsewhere on the island. Scientists believe that some of the unfinished moai were abandoned after their creators eventually encountered very hard rock while quarrying. And other sculptures allegedly were not even going to be separated from the rock in which they were carved. In addition, some of the moai outside the quarry are partially buried up to their shoulders in the ground. Interestingly, these particular moai do not have hollowed out eyes.

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In addition, they do not have a "pukao" on top, a hat-shaped structure carved from a light red volcanic rock that was quarried elsewhere, Puna Pau. Nevertheless, it was these moai that became the real “calling card” of the island.

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In the crater of the Rano Raraku volcano there is a large freshwater lake with clear water. In this lake, once a year, the inhabitants of the island nowadays hold a swimming competition. One of the slopes is studded with idols. The average size of the statues is slightly smaller than those on the outside of the crater and they are much more crudely made. It is still unknown why it was necessary to make statues inside the crater, because removing a multi-ton monolithic sculpture from there without damage, even in our time with the use of technology, is a very difficult task. There is a hypothesis - this is nothing more than a training site for the ancient vocational school No. 1 of the island of Rapa Nui for the training of qualified stonemasons and the statues were not intended for export.

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A herd of wild horses lives in the crater. There are a huge number of horses, wild and domestic, on the island; they are not afraid of people and can be found in the most unexpected places. If the ancient Rapanui had horses, they would have planed this entire mountain to the ground.

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Moai are stone statues made from compressed volcanic ash on Easter Island. All moai are monolithic, meaning they are carved from a single piece of stone rather than glued or fastened together. The weight sometimes reaches more than 20 tons, and the height is more than 6 meters. An unfinished sculpture was found, about 20 meters tall and weighing 270 tons. There are a total of 997 moai on Easter Island. All moai, contrary to popular belief, “look” deep into the island, and not towards the ocean.

A little less than a fifth of the moai were moved to ceremony areas (ahu) and installed with a red stone cylinder on the head (pukau). About 95% were carved from compressed volcanic ash from Rano Raraku, where 394 moai now remain standing. Work in the quarry at the foot of the Rano Raraku volcano was unexpectedly interrupted, and many unfinished moai remained there. Almost all of the completed moai were moved from Rano Raraku to ceremonial platforms.

Recently, it has been proven that the deep eye holes were once filled with corals, some of which have now been reconstructed.

In the mid-19th century, all the moai outside Rano Raraku and many in the quarry were toppled over. Now about 50 moai have been restored to ceremonial sites.

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It was obvious that the manufacture and installation of moai required enormous expenditures of money and labor, and Europeans for a long time could not understand who made the statues, with what tools and how they moved.

Island legends speak of the dominant Hotu Matu'a clan, who left home in search of a new one and found Easter Island. When he died, the island was divided among his six sons, and then between his grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Residents of the island believe that the statues contain the supernatural power of the ancestors of this clan (mana). The concentration of mana will lead to good harvests, rain and prosperity. These legends are constantly changing and are passed down in fragments, making it difficult to reconstruct the exact history.

The most widely accepted theory among researchers was that the moai were erected by settlers from the Polynesian islands in the 11th century. Moai could represent deceased ancestors or give strength to living leaders, as well as symbols of clans.

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The mystery of the creation, movement and installation of the statues was revealed in 1956 by the famous Norwegian traveler Thor Heirdal. The creators of the moai turned out to be an endangered indigenous tribe of the "long-ears", which for centuries kept the secret of creating the statues a secret from the main population of the island - the tribe of "short-ears". As a result of this secrecy, the Short Ears surrounded the statues with mystical superstitions, which led Europeans astray for a long time.

At the request of Thor Heirdal, a group of the last “long-eared” living on the island reproduced all the stages of making statues in the quarry (hewing them out with stone hammers), moved the finished 12-ton statue to the installation site (in a prone position, dragged, using a large crowd of assistants) and installed on its feet using an ingenious device of stones placed under the base and three logs used as levers. When asked why they didn’t tell European researchers about this earlier, their leader replied that “nobody asked ME about this before.” The natives who participated in the experiment reported that for several generations no one had made or installed statues, but from early childhood their elders taught them, telling them orally how to do it and forcing them to repeat what was told until they were convinced that the children remembered everything exactly.

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One of the key issues was the tool. It turned out that while the statues were being made, a supply of stone hammers was being made at the same time. The statue is literally knocked out of the rock by frequent blows, while the stone hammers are destroyed simultaneously with the rock and are continuously replaced with new ones.

The mystery remained why the “short-eared” people say in their legends that the statues “arrived” at their installation sites in a vertical position. Czech researcher Pavel Pavel hypothesized that the moai “walked” by turning over and, in 1986, together with Thor Heirdal, conducted an additional experiment in which a group of 17 people with ropes quickly moved a 20-ton statue in a vertical position.

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Of all the archaeological wonders at Rano Raraku, there is one that quite a few tourists know about, and which is perhaps the most unusual of all.

This is a bearded Tukuturi, which is a one-of-a-kind moai - he kneels. The Tucuturi pose was subsequently used by women and men who participated in the choir during festivals known as "Rio". In particular, singers kneel, tilt their torso slightly back and raise their heads. Also, the performers, as a rule, wear beards (it’s easy to notice that Tukuturi is bearded).

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Tucuturi is made from red volcanic scoria, which can only be found, as mentioned earlier, in Puna Pau. However, it sits on Rano Raraku, which is a tuff quarry. Some surviving records suggest that this figure may be associated with the cult of "tangata manu" - a special competition ritual in which settlers competed annually.

Indirect hints suggest that this was the last moai, which was made after they stopped making classic moai statues.

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